Wherever you may tread

Finding bits of myself when home is out of reach

Today’s accompanying tune: “More to Lose” by Miley Cyrus

My current home is temporary. It will do, serve its purposes, until the little blue house in the woods is ready to take us in. It will shelter us, keep us cool on unseasonably warm days and dry on the characteristically damp ones. It will offer us a reliably comfortable bed each night, with just enough space for us all to squeeze in. It will bathe us in early morning light and nourish us with the handful of recipes we can access via memory. It offers glimpses into its past via its cracking plaster and thoughtfully restored fixtures, one hundred years’ of stories and life etched into its floorboards with ours the most recent signatures in its logbook. It is temporary, but it is home.

It is also in a city, a real city. One with buses and bike lanes and neighbors and walkability scores and locals-only dive bars. With drawbridges and commuters and float planes and damn good food. It is a glimpse into a life I left, one I considered and tried on for size but ultimately cast aside for something quieter, something slower. A life that I enjoyed, thoroughly, but knew wasn’t the one I wanted for the long haul. I could see it, the result of that life. It was something I could live with, just not something I wanted.

For the first several weeks, the city invigorated me the way I remembered. The easily accessible entertainment, the ability to walk just about anywhere, the food — my god, the food! I ran on sidewalks and walking paths instead of on the side of the road. I watched for uneven pavement the way I used to scan for snakes. I ventured back into workout classes and coffee shops and local bookstores. I got a haircut and took the dogs for nail trims on a random Wednesday. My trivia team expanded from just my partner and I to include our friends, our local, nearby friends. Anything we could possibly need was never more than a few miles away. If anything during this transition was ever going to feel like vacation, like a departure from our everyday life, this was it.

One day, I ran into a person who had been staring at their phone while ambling down a wide sidewalk. They’d missed my call out to their right, and wandered straight into oncoming pedestrian traffic. They didn’t seem surprised as we collided, and continued on without a glance. Shortly after, I smacked the hood of a BMW that came inches from me while attempting to make a fast left turn without looking at the intersection. I am not one prone to outbursts, regardless of what my writing may project. But I had reached a limit, the one I whizzed past as I headed towards A Lot, towards Too Much. The energy I’d gained from the city was fading, as was my infatuation with its novelties and conveniences. Sure, it was a nice place to be. But, as was becoming apparent, it was not the place for me.

I haven’t set foot on trail since early April. I’ve been ticking through a slowly dwindling chores list at the little blue house in the woods without much time for leisurely strolls or wildlife encounters. I decided planting a garden would only be an exercise in futility as I can’t be there to nurture it, day in and day out, the way it needs. I can barely manage to keep the weeds at bay as it is — plantlings don’t stand a chance. The longer I’m away from the little blue house in the woods, the more I crave its peace, its quiet. Its contented sense of self. The life I can see there, the one I want. Watching it find its final form is agonizingly slow work, as most work is. Slow enough that I fear I can only be disenchanted by the city when the time comes to leave it, instead of thankful for the time we’ve been lucky enough to share.

If the little blue house in the woods is a touch tree — grounding, present — then my time away from it is time spent unmoored. There’s been the realization that this sense of Too Much is only compounded by the lack of space for retreat, a lack of grounding force to remind myself that I am capable of withstanding the toss and the turn. The rootlessness of my place in this city, in this temporary home, only magnifies the extent to which I need roots to thrive. That the way I can ride the waves is by taking time to rest, to feel like myself, before diving back in. (Forgive the mixed metaphors, but if there are any two that signify life in the Pacific Northwest, they are those of ocean and forest). So far, this journey has been about keeping my head above water, churning and turning my legs and arms to stay afloat while my touch tree sits just out of reach on shore. Seeing it there, so close yet so inaccessible, makes the trudgery that much more apparent, the exhaustion multiplied. A small break in the waves — enough to lie on my back and give my limps a break while I stare longingly at my touch tree — would do wonders for morale. What I’d give to feel like myself again, even if only for a minute.

Until then, I will duck and dodge the hordes of people too disconnected to acknowledge the other beings around them. I will do my best to avoid the outbursts, the slamming on hoods and flipping of phones out of hands. I will remember that each experience is a gift, each place an individual I am lucky to have the opportunity to know. I will trace the cracks in the ceiling of my temporary home and wonder about its past, the families it has sheltered, the seasons it has endured. Because it has done just that, an out-of-place Spanish building plopped along a hillside in the Pacific Northwest. So far from home, it has become that for people long before us and will be for those long after us. If it is able to endure with more than just remnants of its character, so too, can we.

Here’s to finding bits of yourself wherever you may tread.

- Megan